Category Archives: Politics

One telling image: in a Brussels corridor, the EU takes back control of Brexit

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A photo of an ad hoc crisis meeting gives an insight into the efforts made to cope with a floundering British government

As pictures go, it spoke volumes. On Thursday evening in Brussels, Bulgaria’s permanent representative to the EU, Dimiter Tzantchev, tweeted a photograph he titled “In the corridors of the European Council art 50”.

In a play of light and shadow, as if in a Golden Age painting by a modern-day Rembrandt or Frans Hals, a tight cluster of perhaps two dozen figures, some standing, some crouched, pored over a screen: senior EU officials, member state diplomats, Europe advisers to heads of government.

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Franco’s shadow: reburial battle sees Spain confront its darkest days

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Past and future collide as nationalist Vox party gears up for success in next month’s general election while exhumation of dictator draws closer

The gates of the suburban mausoleum that could soon house Spain’s most restless ghost are decked with a shrivelling bunch of red and yellow carnations, a handful of prayer cards and a cheap, broken crucifix.

If the socialist government’s long and fraught campaign to exhume Francisco Franco from the fascist splendour of the Valley of the Fallen finally succeeds, his body will be reinterred in June here in the humbler surroundings of the Mingorrubio-El Pardo municipal cemetery.

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Macron accuses Brexiters of ‘lies’ over no-deal Brexit – video

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The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has accused Brexiters of telling 'lies' to British voters, and he claimed they would be hardest hit if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. 'They told the people, "It'll be easy, it'll be quick!,"' he said. 'It's awful, there were a lot of lies.'


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UK will change tack on UN motions criticising Israel, says Jeremy Hunt

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Policy will be to vote against claims of rights abuses by Israel brought under special protocol

The UK will oppose motions criticising rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza that are brought to the UN’s human rights council under a special procedure dedicated to Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territories, Jeremy Hunt has said.

The move is likely to delight the Trump administration, which quit the human rights council in June last year, citing its approach to Israel. It also appears aimed at cementing the Conservative party’s relations with pro-Israel sections of the British Jewish community at a time when the Labour party is mired in criticism of its handling of antisemitism complaints.

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UK heading for no-deal Brexit if MPs reject agreement, says Macron – video

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The French president has said that if British MPs reject Theresa May's withdrawal deal next week, it will 'guide everybody to a no-deal [Brexit]'. Emmanuel Macron also said the EU and the UK could agree a technical extension if the House of Commons were to vote in favour

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Home Office has utterly failed in immigration detention, MPs find

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Irresponsibility led to people being wrongly detained, committee chair says

The Home Office approach to immigration detention is careless and cavalier and has led to people being wrongfully detained, an influential parliamentary committee has concluded.

The home affairs select committee said in a scathing report that the department had overseen serious failings in almost every area of the immigration detention process.

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Brexit: Theresa May says high time MPs vote for her deal – as it happened

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Rolling updates on the day’s political events, including PM’s statement at Downing Street and Labour leader leaving meeting

I am going to wrap this up now. Here a few of tonight’s highlights at a glance:

Theresa May tells the British People ‘I’m on your side” ...which side is that? Leave, Remain, or Resign?

The summary of Beth Rigby, deputy political editor of Sky News, is blistering:

May’s national address badly misjudged. She has further angered the very people she needs to win over, MPs. Never before has the power of persuasion and art of compromise been so sorely needed and so clearly missing

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Brexit delay decision unlikely this week, says Juncker

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Revolt by pro-Brexit cabinet ministers forces PM to request only three-month extension from EU

Theresa May will ask for only a short extension to article 50 delaying Brexit by less than three months, after a revolt among pro-leave cabinet ministers and MPs that threatened her premiership.

The prime minister had previously intended to agree a longer extension with the EU involving European parliamentary elections if her withdrawal agreement did not pass by Wednesday.

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May asks EU for Brexit delay with cabinet in deadlock over ‘crisis’

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PM forced to seek extension of article 50 as No 10 admits it is too late to leave with a deal

Theresa May will be forced to write to EU leaders on Wednesday and beg them to delay Brexit, with her cabinet deadlocked over the best way out of what Downing Street now concedes is a “crisis”.

The government had maintained until the last possible moment that Brexit could go ahead as planned on 29 March or after a brief “technical extension”.

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Donald Trump Jr and John Bolton berate UK leaders over Brexit

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President’s son and US national security adviser in apparent coordinated intervention

Donald Trump Jr and the US national security adviser, John Bolton, spoke out over Brexit on Tuesday in what appeared to be a coordinated intervention by the White House into British domestic politics.

Both the US president’s son and Bolton attacked British political leadership after Theresa May said she would ask the EU for a delay to the UK’s exit from the European Union; in line with parliament’s wish.

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Self-interest must not guide UK aid | Letters

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Britain’s aid budget must be about altruism, not narrow self-interest say the Rt Rev John Arnold and the Rt Rev Dr Christopher Cocksworth

Your article (Aid budget: Ex-minister joins calls for shake-up, 18 March) on the report by the TaxPayers’ Alliance offers an opportunity to reflect again on what we want and expect from our government.

In the suffering of men, women and children caught up in conflict, dealing with the worst effects of climate change or leaving their homes in search of a safer future, we see the face of Jesus Christ.

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How public transport actually turns a profit in Hong Kong

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The Hong Kong MTR’s ‘rail plus property’ model keep fares cheap and makes the company completely self-sustaining. Could loss-making metro systems in other cities learn lessons?

“Once we build the railway, the value of land rises and we capture the increase in value,” says Jacob Kam, managing director and soon-to-be chief executive, of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Corporation.

Related: Hong Kong faces commuter chaos after rare train collision

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Constitutional chaos after third vote on Brexit deal blocked

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Prime minister likely to have to request long article 50 extension after Bercow intervenes

Theresa May’s government has been plunged into constitutional chaos after the Speaker blocked the prime minister from asking MPs to vote on her Brexit deal for a third time unless it had fundamentally changed.

With 11 days to go until Britain is due to leave the EU, May was forced to pull her plans for another meaningful vote because John Bercow said she could not ask MPs to pass the same deal, after they rejected it twice by huge margins. EU officials, meanwhile, were considering offering her a new date for a delayed Brexit to resolve the crisis.

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Priti Patel’s brazen anti-aid agenda is ultimately all about Brexit | Peter Beaumont

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Backing calls from the TaxPayers’ Alliance to face down ‘NGO cartels’ shows a profound misunderstanding of how the aid system works

Priti Patel is not known for her transparency or her subtlety.

The former international development secretary was forced to resign over misleading prime minister Theresa May over an undeclared “family holiday” to Israel that – among other things – saw her fail to tell the British embassy that she would be meeting with Israeli politicians and visiting the occupied Golan Heights, against all British government conventions for a serving minister.

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No 10 says it won’t call Brexit vote this week unless it has ‘prospect of success’ – Politics live

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

I’m just back from the Downing Street lobby briefing. And it was a good illustration of the old rule that the length a briefing is in inverse proportion to its usefulness. (That’s because, if the reporters get a story, they want to wrap up quickly so they can file. If the briefing drags on, that’s because people keep asking questions in the hope that they might eventually get a useable reply.)

Here is the main takeaway.

Arriving at the EU foreign affairs council in Brussels this morning, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, said that he hoped there would be a third vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal tomorrow. But, he added, “we need to be comfortable that we’ll have the numbers.”

He said there were “some cautious signs of encouragement” in that Tories who have opposed the deal up to now, like Norman Lamont and Esther McVey, now want to see it passed. “But there is a lot more work to do,” Hunt added.

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Brexit: Labour likely to back public vote on May’s deal, says Corbyn

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However, Labour leader also says he is determined to continue pressing for party’s softer-Brexit policy

Jeremy Corbyn has said Labour is likely to back an amendment aimed at securing a second Brexit referendum this week – but stressed his party still hopes to secure its own, softer deal.

The Kyle-Wilson amendment was drawn up by two Labour MPs, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, who consulted with the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, and the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, over the precise wording.

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Revealed: EU war-gaming for fall of May’s government

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Leak shows Brussels planning for PM’s defeat and making efforts to prevent her deal being unpicked

The EU is war-gaming for the fall of Theresa May amid a complete collapse in confidence in the prime minister after a week of chaos over Brexit, a leaked document seen by the Observer reveals.

In the run-up to a crucial summit of EU leaders where May will ask for a delay to Brexit, Brussels fears there is little hope that she will succeed in passing her deal this week and is preparing itself for a change of the guard in Downing Street.

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Conservatives tell MEPs to consider election bid if Brexit deal fails

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Party’s leader in European parliament says it must be prepared to field candidates

The Conservative party has contacted all its MEPs to ask them to consider running for election in May if the prime minister’s Brexit deal is defeated on Tuesday.

Ashley Fox, the party’s leader in the European parliament, contacted MEPs to ask them to think about their options in the event that Theresa May’s deal fails again.

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Ministers in talks with DUP in attempt to win backing for Brexit deal

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Discussions likely to cover role of Northern Ireland assembly if Irish backstop were used

The Democratic Unionist party is to continue intensive talks to try to reach an agreement to allow it to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal, with discussions focusing on domestic legal guarantees that Northern Ireland will have no regulatory divergence with the rest of the UK.

Downing Street is hopeful that the support of the DUP is key to unlocking the backing of many Conservative Brexiters when May brings her deal to the House of Commons for the third time.

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